Abstract:

Enhancing regional medical services improves people's health and their economic and social development. This study examined panel data of the medical services supplied in 11 prefecture-level cities in Zhejiang Province from 2013 to 2022. The entropy weight method revealed the level of medical services in each city. The spatial and temporal evolution of medical services for each was also analyzed using the spatial autocorrelation method. Finally, a spatial econometric model was used to identify the factors driving service levels. The results show that the overall level medical services supplied in the Zhejiang Common Prosperity Demonstration Zone is on an upward trend, with large regional differences. The level of medical service supply has negative spatial autocorrelation, and the areas with high values of medical service supply do not play a radiation-led role. The level of urbanization and education expenditure has a positive impact on the level of medical service supply. Urban population density has a negative impact and negative externality, but the degree of openness to the outside world has a positive externality. The experience of medical service supply in the Common Prosperity Demonstration Zone shows that, in order to promote the improvement of medical services, the spatial allocation of medical resources should be optimised, and the areas with a higher level of medical service supply should play a spatial radiation-driven effect. At the same time, it is necessary to promote the process of urbanization and stress the importance of citizen health education and health literacy.

Key words: medical service supply level, entropy weight method, moran index, spatial econometrics, driving factors